The Possibility of Possibility
by Polly Lynn
Summary: They still have their dance. Subtext and word games and the chase. They still light each other up with frustration and wanting more. Always more. He wouldn't trade it for anything. But sometimes he wishes she'd just come out with it when it matters. And this matters. A one shot set during Final Frontier (5x06) and set in the TARDIS-verse (not a crossover, I promise).


Title: The Possibility of Possibility

Word Count: ~6100

Rating: K+

Spoilers: Set during Final Frontier (5 x 06). Spoilers for that.

A/N: A TARDIS-verse experiment set in Season 5, before "Memento Vivere" and after "Circle 'Round the Sun." Not sure how this turned out, so I'd especially appreciate feedback.

The TARDIS-verse is NOT a Dr. Who Crossover, just a series of linked stories that more or less stand alone. They're set in canon timeline between Kill Shot (4 x 09) and, for now, After Hours (5 x 08). See my bio for other story titles and information on show order/posting order.

For Lydian Stone, who just finished the other TARDIS stories today and wanted more. And for AC/NoOrdinaryLines who mocks my authorial pain.

* * *

They aren't spending the night together. They aren't supposed to, anyway. For her, Gates and her much-loved monthly audits mean an earlier than usual start tomorrow, active case or no.

For him, a meeting that Gina scheduled at the crack of dawn to punish him. He wants to take the Derrick Storm properties somewhere smarter. Somewhere he's happier with. Somewhere that doesn't involve running into his daughter under such heart attack–inducing circumstances, though that's just the most recent in a long line of incentives. He should've finished the pitch weeks ago, but he hasn't really started.

So they aren't supposed to spend the night together.

At the best of times, he misses her. When they spend nights apart, he feels deprived. He's spent so much time wanting and not having that now, whenever he can't touch her—can't freely put his hands on her—he feels deprived.

Tonight, it's more than that. Tonight, it feels critical. Like the sun might not keep burning if he can't be with her. If he can't pull her close to him or look her in the eye or whisper to her in the dark. He's not particular about the details.

They aren't supposed to spend the night together, and maybe they won't. But he doesn't think this can wait 'till morning. He doesn't think it should.

It's not that he knows her any better now than he did six months ago. It's not exactly that. He does and he doesn't. A lot of it—so much of it—has been learning to trust his instincts again. To plant his feet and let himself remember that he _knows_ her.

It stops his heart sometimes. When something catches him off guard. She says something or she doesn't say something and she gives him that look that says, _C'mon Castle: Keep up. _

And he should know. He should know the lines and how it all plays out, but she feels like a stranger sometimes, and it's wrong. It's not how it used to be. It stops his heart when he realizes just how lost they got before the storm. Just how close they came to never having any of this.

If he knows her better now, it's because she lets him in. Sometimes. In some ways. She's still intensely private. Internal. Much more likely to let something sit and come back to it later. To see if it's still important or a passing thing not worth getting worked up over.

And he's learning that her way works, too. It goes against the grain for him, but he's learning that not every thought or grievance or idle wondering has to be aired. He's learning not to needle and poke all the time when she hides herself away. Learning that he doesn't always need to, because most of the time—more of the time, anyway—she lets him in. And it's like a gift every time.

They still have their dance. Subtext and word games and the chase. They still light each other up with frustration and wanting more. Always more. He wouldn't trade it for anything.

But sometimes he wishes she'd just come out with it when it matters. And this matters.

It matters to him. All of a sudden, it matters. Except it's not all of a sudden. The realization is sudden, but the truth of it isn't. It's not sudden at all. It's mattered all along or at least for a long time. A _long _time. And the fact that it's a surprise to him means that, yes, he has his own issues with what he's saying and what he's not saying. It's not just her.

But everything he knows about her lit up. It all lit up at once when she asked. When she didn't really ask. When she timed it so precisely that she made sure it was something he'd barely catch. Something she tossed over her shoulder on the heels of a jibe in the last seconds before they parted ways on a night they weren't supposed to spend together. She left it for that exact moment, and he knows what that means.

It means that it matters to her. Even though it's too soon and it's crazy to even have that kind of conversation. After the year they've had. After how long it's been and how long it hasn't been.

And he knows her. How she prides herself on not wishing her life away. He knows—he _knows_—that she's calculating and assuming and deciding without him. Without even_ asking _because she's sure she knows what he wants and where he is on things like this that _matter_. That she knows what's possible between them.

She knows him and she doesn't. Just like him. And he wishes that she'd just ask. That she'd just say that it's important to her and ask where he stands and have it out there.

Because crazy or not, too soon or not, it matters, and she will never, _ever _say that.

And he's tired of wasting time.

Suddenly, all the things they haven't said over the years weigh on him—all the things they haven't said since the storm—and he's exhausted with it. With the _almost_s and _could-have-been_s and the collateral damage. To her and to him and to everyone without the good sense to see that the two of them had long since wrecked each other for anyone else. To see that even if everything between them came to nothing in the end, they'd never be the same.

It weighs on him, and just like that, he's brooding over where they could have been by now. Where they might have been with one word in the right place. Or with him keeping his damned mouth shut in the wrong one. And it scares him that the most likely outcome all along has been them getting nowhere at all. Being nothing. Having nothing.

He's tired of wasting time, and whether or not they were supposed to spend the night together—whether or not it's too soon—this can't wait 'till morning.

He doesn't want to wait 'till morning. He doesn't want to wait another second.

* * *

She's never been crazy about sleeping with someone else. Having them there in the bed all night. Sleep has always come—when it does come—with routine. She's a creature of habit because she's had to be. Conditioning. The same objects, the same stimuli, in the same order at the same time. Or as close as she's been able to get, given the life of a cop. None of that is easy with someone else to consider.

All of that is impossible with him. Because he is the least methodical person on the planet. He goes to bed at 3 AM. Or 9:30 if he's spent all day in the zone and his brain and body just shut down.

Sometimes he sleeps in 10-minute increments, popping up and out of bed to tear pages out of her notebook—_her _notebook—because _You put it in the same place all the time. I always know where it is. _Or he becomes this incredible dead weight. Immovable. Unwakeable. Hours and hours of him pinning down the covers so that her ass is hanging out in the cold.

She's never been crazy about sleeping with someone else. But now she misses him so badly when he's not beside her that it's like needles under her skin.

It's been that way since the beginning. She waited for the novelty to wear off. She waited a long time. For it to annoy her. For every single thing to annoy her. For it to become a matter of gritting her teeth and making an effort because that's what you do. That's what you have to do, even if it means a hammer between your eyes and knots in your shoulders.

There have been nights like that. Nights when she creeps off to her own couch because he's heavy and loud and too warm and _there. _And he follows. In a little while, he follows and coaxes her back to bed and promises to be good. Or he wordlessly stretches out alongside her. And she sleeps. Against all odds, she sleeps.

There have been nights when he's up and working and she tosses and turns. Nights when he creeps over to her side of bed and begs her to keep him company. When she makes a show of pulling the throw on his office couch over as much of herself as she can, and he flops down next to her and eases her head into his lap while he works at an awkward angle so she can sleep a little. Nights when she knows he's itching to work and he comes back to bed anyway.

It's all as much for her as it is for him. At least as much for her. They both know that. They both know she'll never ask. That she'll never say she needs him like that.

She can practically count on two hands the number of hours she's slept on the nights they don't spend together. And she can count the number of nights they've spent apart in the last six months on two hands alone. When she thinks of it that way, the air won't come.

So she doesn't. She doesn't think about it that way.

She won't sleep tonight. She knows she won't sleep, because it's stupid. It's _stupid_. The reason she has to get up, yes, but worse than that the things this case is stirring up. The show. Henry. Those pictures of herself. The way all of it strips away her armor and how awful that is.

And how awful it's not.

She wasn't ready for that, but it's not all bad. It's . . . good in its own way. It's really good. Given everything—the way her life has played out for the last 13 years—she's not in the habit of nostalgia. But this all has her remembering what it was like not to need the armor so much. What it was like to savor possibility instead of dreading choice.

Possibility. It's not a word she associates with herself. Possibilities are for other people. That's how she thinks of it. And she's fine with that, most of the time. She's made her bed and she's content to lie in it.

Whether or not she's sleeping.

He won't call. No matter how hard she stares at the phone, he probably won't call. She's been a little too earnest in her annoyance the last couple of times. A little too convincing when she snaps at him. Tells him that she can't hold his hand 24/7.

And it's all more for her than for him. It's theater for her own sake, because he misses her and he wants her and he'd spend every single night with her if she'd let him. They both know that. And they both know that more often than not she'll drift off to the sound of his voice. For a little while, she'll drift off. But he doesn't say it. He doesn't call her out.

He's trying. He's trying to respect her boundaries and give her space. To let her figure out things on her own. What she can give and take and not feel like she's lost. What's important.

What's important to _her. _ It seems like she ought to know that, but she doesn't. A lot of the time she doesn't until she's snatching it to herself and guarding it fiercely and she knows so little about it that she can hardly even give it a name. _Trust. Tomorrow. Only. Privacy. Intimacy. Someday. _

He waits for her to find it out. To let him in, and he loves it when she does. When she lets him in, he smiles like it's the best thing yet. Like he _knew_ she'd let him in and then he pokes around and he's nosy and he runs a little roughshod over her. Gleeful. Like it's good for her. And maybe it is. Maybe it's good for her to give and then give a little more. He drives her crazy, but he lets her figure things out. Sometimes, anyway.

He surprises her that way. All these strange moments when she looks around and realizes that he's the one being the grown-up. That she's dug in her heels for no reason. White lies and avoidance and foolishness. And he just waits for her to come clean. To be ready to come clean. And yes, he crows and teases and pretends he'll never let her live it down, because he wouldn't be Castle if he didn't. But he's patient and level headed and _kind _in ways she never imagined.

That surprises the _hell _out of her because she thought she knew him—assumed that everything there was to know was always on display. But it isn't, and she doesn't. In a lot of ways she doesn't know him, and he surprises her all the time.

* * *

He can't call her for any number of reasons. She hates it. She hates when he calls after they've already hung up for the night. Or she thinks she ought to hate it. Whatever.

But even without that, this is not . . . he's not doing this over the phone. It matters too much, and it's something he has to make her see. He has to show her that it's true. And he needs see for himself what's true for her. _How _it matters for her, because he really doesn't know.

So he can't call.

He also can't just land on her doorstep, because _that_ is a recipe for seven different kinds of disaster. Granted, a few of those might end in mind-blowing, if slightly angry, sex up against his favorite wall. But the others end with her running screaming into the night, and he won't risk it. Though he does love that wall.

It makes sense to do it this way, but he's nervous. He's only ever done it once. Twice if he counts that first desperate shout. On his knees and at the end of his rope at Montgomery's grave when he begged her to let him take care of her, just for right then. Just for that moment. When he promised her that it didn't have to count.

The other time made him a thief. That's what stills his hand on the phone now. He'd do it again. He would steal that night with her at the Angelika all over again. A hundred times, he'd steal it. Sometimes he thinks he imagined it. That woman lolling in the seat next to him. Leaning into him, teasing and playful and all lit up from the inside with the night and the movie and _them._ All lit up with possibility. Other times he knows she's in there—she's still in there. He'd steal that night a hundred times.

But he hates what drove him to it. Hates every single thing he was keeping from her and she was keeping from him. He hates feeling like he deceived her. Like he acted . . . dishonorably. It's stupid. It's _stupid, _but that and a sudden attack of screaming nerves still his hand.

He's talking himself out of it. The whole thing. He's talking himself out of it and he knows it. Already he's telling himself that he read it wrong. That it was an off-hand comment. That he'd been panicked and running his stupid mouth. And of course she'd commented on it. Anyone would have, and it just happened to be her.

But it's a lie. It matters to her and he doesn't even know _how_ it matters. He just knows it does. He's as sure of that as he's ever been of anything about her. About them.

It matters, and one of them has to say something. And it won't be her.

He types out the letters. Only seven, but his fingers slip a dozen times. He's about to hit send when he realizes it's not enough.

It's not enough to just send it and wait. He has to be moving. He has to have a plan. He has to anticipate how she'll react after all this time. What she'll think and whether or not she'll play by the rules. She won't want to. She probably won't want to, and he'll have to make her. He'll have to insist on it, because they need to have this conversation and this is the only way he can think to do it.

He pulls a coat out of the hall closet almost as an afterthought. It's cold, isn't it? He's been cooped up in the convention center for so long he hardly remembers. Hardly cares anyway because he's anxious and feels like he's burning up already.

He stumbles down the stairs, too impatient for the elevator, as he thumbs through a list on his phone and finally hits on something. It's not perfect. It's not one of theirs. There's no history for them, but maybe that's a plus. Maybe this is something they start fresh with. He doesn't know any more, and perfect or not, it'll have to do.

His fingers are sure and steady this time, though he's no less nervous. He strides through the lobby of his building with hardly a nod for Eduardo, and then he's out on the street. _Time out. _He hits send and doesn't hesitate. Dashes off the address and hits send again.

He's moving and he has a plan. He has something like a plan.

* * *

Her phone buzzes once. A text. She smiles to herself. Bites her lip and dives for the phone. A text. He's cheating. If he were here, she'd kiss him on the mouth for it. Or twist his ear. Probably both. A couple of times in a row. She wishes he were here.

She swipes a finger over the screen and freezes.

_Time out. _

She freezes. Absolutely.

The phone buzzes again. She drops it and the screen flares with eerie light from half under the bed. She's afraid to look. At first she's afraid and then she's angry. What the hell is he playing at?

She snatches at the phone. Overbalances and falls most of the way out of the bed. She jerks her legs out from under the blankets and slides to the floor. Her back is pressed against the side of the bed, and her heart is pounding like she's taking fire.

It's an address. Practically on her corner. Is he just . . . does he think he can just show up like this? A faint, distant voice points out that he obviously _doesn't _ think he can just show up, because he wants to meet her on the corner, but she doesn't care. She doesn't listen.

She calls him. It takes her a few tries to make her fingers work because she's angry. She's furious. She has no idea what he thinks he's doing, and she's _furious_. She finally gets the call to go through. It rings twice. Not even twice and it's dumping to voice mail. He declined it.

Another text comes through.

_Play by the rules, Beckett. _

She's one tenth of one breath away from throwing the phone against the wall, but she calls again instead. She's not doing herself out of a phone. Not when she needs to yell at him. Not when she needs to know what the _hell_ he thinks he's doing.

It rings three times this time. Almost four before it cuts out in mid-burr. Declined again, but he's giving in. He'll give in. Of course he will.

Another text.

_Kate, please. Time out. _

It's not the "please" that gets her. It's not her name, and it's not even the familiar phrase. It's not exactly that, though it carries the heaviest weight. It's the sudden memory that he has always come to her without question. Always. Whether things were good, bad, or hopeless, he has always come.

She's not angry any more. She tightens her fists around the bed sheets and gets her feet under her. She's not angry. Her limbs are stiff and mechanical and she feels like it's taking her forever to get dressed. But she's not angry.

She's terrified. Or she would be if she could climb that high. If her heart weren't an anchor pulling her down and down.

It must be bad. It has to be bad if he thinks he has to do it like this. If he thinks they still need this. Because she's better. She's _more_ and all the secrets are out. But more must not be enough. It must not be, because she can't think of another reason.

It must be bad.

It hasn't been forever. Not even 10 minutes have ticked over by the time she has clothes on and keys in her hand, but there's nothing else from him. She pushes through her front door and it's only habit—years of habit—that have her doing sensible things. Patting a pocket for her keys, checking the lock, and moving her feet down the stairs.

It's memory and the knowledge of how much she owes him that guide her fingers through familiar the motions. Memory and knowledge and a slowly breaking heart.

_Time out._

* * *

He screwed up.

It's not just that she's calling. That she's not playing by the rules. He expected that. He expected something like that, even if he hoped she'd just come. Even if he hoped.

But he had an answer for it. One answer and another and she hasn't tried again. She hasn't tried in a while.

He doesn't know how long to wait before Plan B. He doesn't really know what Plan B _is_ although it's probably something like showing up at her door with no hopes at all for his favorite wall. Or going home. But no. Plan B is not going home. He's not going home even though he screwed up.

She hates this place. It's probably why they've never been here. Not in the middle of the night and not in the light of day, save for an emergency coffee run or two. She hates it and it's like he handed her another reason not to play by the rules. To top it all off, it closed half an hour ago.

He pounded on the window and begged a couple of cups of coffee, but they close for a few hours once a week. He forgot or he never knew because she hates this place and he can't even remember how he knows that much.

He screwed up and he probably needs a Plan C and beyond.

His phone chimes and it startles him so badly that he drops one of the coffees. He bats at it and makes it even worse. The lid pops off and it splashes down the front of his thighs. He's staring down at himself dumbly when her shadow falls across him.

Her legs are a crazy, elongated diagonal falling across his. The spreading coffee stain shades even darker with the shadow. It's a funny image. Or maybe he's just hysterical at this point, because he is _screwing this up. _

He looks up with some stupid comment on his lips, but it dies when he catches sight of her. She's wearing an enormous sweatshirt. It falls almost to her knees and swallows up her fingertips. She hasn't bothered to lace her running shoes. She looks small. So small and stoic and he doesn't know why. He doesn't know why she's looking at him like that.

He forgets about the coffee stain. Forgets that he's soaked and she isn't dressed for the freezing weather and he pulls her to him.

"Kate, what's wrong? What's wrong?" He's trying to hold her and slip off his coat and juggle the surviving coffee all at the same time. He's making a mess of it. He's making a mess of everything.

She's quiet. She hasn't said a thing. She just lets him move her around. She takes the coffee when he pushes it into her hands and turns obediently this way and that so he can drape his coat over her shoulders.

He tugs the coat closed around her. He opens his mouth again and he'll beg at this point. He's prepared to beg when her words cut through the night air between them.

"Just tell me."

He snaps his arms straight. Holds her at arm's length.

It's not loud. It's not angry. It's not anything other than a demand, and it scares him. It _scares _him because he's screwing this up and he can't see how things can possibly get any worse.

"I want more than the option."

He blurts it out and then he sees. Then he sees how much worse it can get.

* * *

She wants to laugh.

The minute she sees him, she wants to laugh. He's juggling something and it looks like he . . . wet his pants?

For a second—for the space of a breath—she's back in that single starstruck moment at the very beginning. Before she saw through him. The absurd contrast between the slick image and the ridiculous man. The ridiculous, infuriating, annoying, adorable man who is so much better—so much more—than the image ever could be.

She wants to laugh, but then she remembers it's bad. Then she doesn't want to laugh any more. She wants to run.

He sees it. She knows the exact moment when he sees it because he's wrapping her up and murmuring to her and trying to take care of her. She wants to hit him for not just getting it over with. Whatever it is, the fact that he thinks he has to take care of her just makes her _furious_ and she wants to hit him.

That passes in an instant, too. It's so familiar. It's so depressingly familiar. One desire following the other, and underneath—through it all—she just wants him. She just wants him and she wonders why it ever gets more complicated than that. Why they let it get so complicated.

But it's bad and she has to know the worst right away.

"Just tell me."

He pushes her away like she's on fire. Like she burns him and he can't stand to have her close. She doesn't think he knows. He couldn't if he knew. However bad it is, he couldn't do that to her if he knew.

She doesn't blink. She stares him down and makes him face her. If he's going to do this—whatever it is—he's going to have to look her in the eye.

"I want more than the option."

Well. _Well._

* * *

He's not sure how it happens, but he's in her apartment. They're in her apartment and there doesn't seem to be much chance of wall sex, slightly angry or otherwise. Not when he's sitting on her couch in damp boxers under a blanket he's pretty sure her Great Aunt crocheted. Crochet, he figures, probably reduces the changes of angry wall sex to nil. Great Aunt crochet eliminates any lingering possibility at all.

On the up side, she doesn't seem to be poised to run screaming into the night, either. Unless she took his pants so he couldn't follow. But probably not. Hopefully not.

She hasn't said anything. Well, obviously, she's _said _things. She must have said things like: _Let's go upstairs_ and _Castle, we're going upstairs right now_ and _Give me your pants_ and probably _Oh, calm down, Castle, I'm just putting them in the dryer._ She must have said things like that, but he can't remember because he cannot fucking believe he just blurted it out like that, but she _scared _him. She scared him.

She hasn't said anything about that. The blurting or the scaring. She's been all efficient and practical and it's starting to get on his nerves because this is _exactly _what he's talking about. About her and all the not saying.

She pads back into the living room accompanied by the faint smell off coffee. That means she didn't wash them. His pants. She just put them in the dryer. And _that_ means she doesn't plan on him staying.

"Do you want some wine?" She's already pouring a glass.

She . . . probably doesn't plan on him staying? He's not sure how to read the offer.

"I don't think it's a good idea."

"Maybe not," she agrees. Cryptically agrees because she knocks back a healthy portion of the glass she's just poured. She doesn't seemed worried about whether or not it's a good idea for _her_.

He wonders if he can change his answer. He'd like a glass of wine now because he'd like something to do with his hands that doesn't involve destroying this crocheted thing. Ugly as it is, shredding family heirlooms is probably not going to make this conversation go any better. Assuming there ever _is _a conversation.

She sits on the other end of the couch from him. She tucks her feet up and they disappear under the hem of the sweatshirt. Her fingertips are just visible around the stem of her wine glass. He wonders whose it is. The sweatshirt. It's not his and he wonders.

"Emergency sweatshirt," she says and she flaps the sleeve a little. "Wardrobe malfunction in Vice a long time ago. It was in the trunk of someone's cruiser."

It's his schtick, the mind-reading thing. It's a little a little surreal on her. It's a little annoying. It's not like he was actually any closer to saying anything, but she doesn't know that. Unless she does.

"It didn't blow up?" It's a strange question and he wonders if he's stalling. He doesn't even know any more. He isn't even sure that she's the one drinking the wine, though the line of dark, dark red keeps creeping down the curve of her glass and his hands are still distressingly, dangerously empty.

She laughs and leans her cheek against the side of the couch. She studies the hem and so does he.

"It didn't blow up. It was in my locker. Can't even remember why I brought it home," she says after a minute. She looks up, then. She looks up at him all of a sudden. "But you didn't come here to uncover my embarrassing nightwear secrets."

"I didn't come here at all," he says defensively.

"Castle . . ." she sounds tired, and he's afraid she's going to kick him out, pants or no pants. No pants or pants. Whatever.

"I want more than the option and I don't want you deciding for me." He sounds like a sullen teenager. He'd like to kick himself, but he'd probably screw that up, too. He tries again. He gives up on the idea of this not being a mess and he tries again. "I don't want you deciding for _us_ without me."

"About . . . kids." The dregs of her wine are fascinating all of a sudden. "Castle it's only been . . ."

"I _know_ it's only been." He cuts in. "I know. And I'm not asking you . . . this isn't a conversation about that. This isn't even a conversation._"_

"It's not a conversation." She repeats flatly.

He suddenly understands her obsession with twisting his ear. He would twist hers right now if there were any chance he'd come out of it with a full complement of fingers. And he suspects she sounds like him. He suspects she sounds exactly like him.

He decides to be the bigger person instead.

"Why did you ask me if I wanted more kids today?" He leans toward her.

She hesitates. A fraction of a second of fiddling with the stem of her wineglass, but she hesitates. And the laugh is forced. Just a little forced, but he learned from the best. More than that, he _knows _her. "Because you were _freaking _out about that stupid blaster."

"No," he says firmly. "No, I mean why _today?_ Why that moment? Why haven't you ever asked before?"

"You've never asked me," she shoots back. She's on the defensive now, and he has to bite back a smile. This is more how he imagined this going.

"That's fair. It's fair. I sort of assumed . . . but I shouldn't have." He pretends to think about it. Pretends at first, then he actually does think. He thinks about it. "I shouldn't have. Your line of work. Losing your mother. Maybe you don't and I shouldn't have assumed . . ."

"Is that what this is about? That you want 'more than the option'?" She sets her wine glass on the end table. "Slams" isn't quite the right word, though he suspects it's firmer than she wanted it to be. He suspects she's wondering whether making short work of that glass was a good idea. "What if I say no, Castle? What then?"

"Then I still want to know why you never asked me," he says quietly. "Why you weren't really asking today."

"Because you already have a kid!" She throws her hands up and the long sleeves of her sweatshirt flap inelegantly. "Because she's in _college _and she's _great_ and you practically raised her by yourself and why would you want . . ."

She trails off and he can't quite hide the smile this time. At great risk to life and limb and ear and other body parts he's fond of, he can't quite hide it.

"_Shit, _Castle," she says softly. Her eyes close. She rubs the bridge of her nose. She looks small again.

He tosses the crocheted thing on the floor and slides over to her. Maybe he's made his point, maybe he hasn't, but she looks small and uncertain and that's not why he's here. It's the opposite of why he's here.

He finds her fingers inside the trailing sleeves of her sweatshirt and passes them by. He drags his palms up her forearms, over her biceps, and his fingertips find the strong curve of her shoulders. He rounds his palms over them, spreads wide fingers over her shoulder blades and wills himself not to kiss her. Not yet. He presses his lips to her hair like that will save him.

"Kate, _Kate._" Her name is barely a sigh and she's barely breathing, but she's listening. She's listening and it feels like the most important thing in the world right now. "I don't know. I don't know how any of this will turn out, but neither do you. And I want it. I want the possibility."

"Me, too," she says at last, and he does kiss her then. Or he would have kissed her, but she gets there first. She kisses him and tells him again. "Me, too."

* * *

She makes him leave. His pants are dry and they're both tired and they weren't supposed to spend the night together.

And it's . . . traditional. It's traditional and she's superstitious about it. She feels protective. Of the ritual—the formality of it—and everything it's done for them. Everything it can still do for them if they need it. When they need it.

It's traditional, so she kisses him in her doorway and whispers _Time out over_ and makes him leave.

Her phone rings as soon as he gets home. As soon as he can possibly be home and she wonders if he's even made it through his door yet.

She doesn't say hello. "Work on your pitch, Castle. No 'possibility' if Gina has your balls."

"_Winging it. And I'll take excellent care of my balls. Pinky swear."_

"You're not supposed to call," she says, but she's sleepy and she knows he can hear her smile.

"_I know . . ." _

He leaves it hanging and she should nip this in the bud, but damned if he doesn't bring sleep a little nearer, even when he's being annoying. Even when he's breaking the rules.

"Castle," she says, and it's the opposite of stern.

"_Kate." _His voice is soft and it's just ridiculous.

"Castle, come on. I need to sleep and you need to work." It's stern this time. It's a little stern.

"_Ok,"_ he says and it's no less ridiculous. _"Ok, but . . ."_

"Castle, I'm hanging up," she moves the phone away from her ear, but not fast enough.

"_Ok, ok,"_ he says. Quickly this time. And a little less ridiculous. _"But I want you to consider the possibility . . ." _

"I'm considering the possibility." She rolls her eyes and wishes _she _sounded less ridiculous.

" . . . _of Nikki. It's a great name and . . . " _

"Hanging up, Castle."

She does. She hangs up and drifts off to sleep.


End file.
